Little Boys Know Nothing of Sunshine
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day four hundred and eighty-three: It's not just about spreading sunshine... they're protectors, too.


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 22nd cycle. Now cycle 23!_

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**"Little Boys Know Nothing of Sunshine"  
Young Rachel & Quinn  
****Sunshine Girls #23 (following 'Shine a Light On') **

In the summer, the Sunshine Girls would get to take their 'patrolling' out on the road; they went to the park. Both sides' parents had had no luck at all in trying to convince them not to go out there in their Sunshine uniforms, tutus and all, until Pop had the sneaky idea of suggesting the girls should go 'undercover' when they were outside… to protect their secret identities. After some consideration, they had agreed. It would go down as having been 'their' idea, but finally they had assembled some basic 'cover outfits.' Of course, they maintained their colors. Beams, undercover as Rachel Berry, wore red, while Rays, as Quinn Fabray, wore blue.

The park was the third of their fair cities, where they looked out over its people, ready to bring them what they always brought… a dose of sunshine. They would climb atop the jungle gym – or as high as they could manage – and observe… If observing got tiring, then there were the swings… Their legs weren't exactly long enough to get the momentum going on their own, but they had help for that…

And while two of their cities were positively worry free, this one had something of a criminal element, in the form of two boys, the sworn enemies of the Sunshine Girls. They weren't both complete terrors, one of them could be nice, rarely… but the other one was a menace and a pest – they'd heard the words from Judy Fabray and Dad, respectively.

The girls weren't scared of them, at least Beams and Rays weren't… if Rachel and/or Quinn were, then they didn't show it. No, instead they were much more interested in keeping an eye on them, making sure they didn't terrorize the park too much.

"Do you see them?" Beams asked, as she tried to climb up a little higher, to reach Rays, the better climber. The blonde scanned the grounds.

"No," she shook her head, looking down. "Careful, you're gonna fall," she reached down to help her.

"No I won't," 'Rachel' insisted.

"I got you," 'Quinn' grunted, pulling on her friend's arm. Finally she got her on to the bar with her.

"Thanks," Rachel spoke, out of breath, and Quinn nodded before looking back, and…

"There! They're coming!" she pointed, suddenly on high alert, and Rachel looked.

"Get me down, get me down!" she tried to get down, but she was even worse at that than she was at climbing. So Quinn helped her down to the sand, where they remained 'hidden' behind the bars, peering out at the boys as they walked through the playground. "What are they doing?"

"I don't know," Quinn craned her neck. "I think they… Beams, look!" she pointed, as the boys were nearing the wading pool. The girls looked to one another… No good could come of this, not with those two… So with a shared nod, the Sunshine Girls left their hideout and tore across the park, to observe the boys from closer.

"Stupid boys," Rachel almost looked ready to leap. Quinn held on to her arm, stopping her. "They're going to push him!" she startled, seeing the boys creeping up on another one, standing near the edge.

"Go, go, go!" Quinn called, almost a battle cry as they came out of hiding and ran toward the pool.

"Look out!" Rachel called out to the clueless boy, who looked up just in time to jump out of the way… the others weren't so lucky, as the girls' dash only got faster and ended up colliding with the 'stupid boys', sending all four of them into the water. By the time they'd all resurfaced, the girl looking over the pool had marched over and from the look on her face, they had better get out of there and quick.

The soaked girls and boys climbed out of the pool, marching off back to the playground. All was quiet, until 'the menace' gave a shove at the girls; they got their balance back with a cry before turning back to the boys. "You were going to push him!" Quinn defended their actions.

"Were not," the Menace played innocent.

"You love to push!" Rachel accused, and the boy couldn't resist smirking. "There, see?" she pointed her finger at him, which was dripping still. The Menace shook his head forcefully, like a wet dog, sending the excess on to the screeching girls. He smiled, proud of himself.

"PEST!" Quinn erupted, almost tackling him if it wasn't for Rachel now being the one holding her back. This only made the boys laugh.

"Come on, Finn," the Menace looked to his friend, giving the girls a last look before marching off 'triumphantly;' they didn't get anywhere near the wading pool for the rest of the day… or the summer.

The girls returned to Pop, who had brought them that day, and when he saw they were soaking wet, he got their vests and went up to them, crouching to help them into them. "What happened to you two?" he asked. The girls looked to each other.

"Sunshine stuff," Rachel held up her hand.

"Right, of course," Pop nodded. "Are you okay though?"

"The pool is safe now," Quinn declared with pride.

"Well that's good," Pop smirked, pulling up the girls' hoods over their heads. "So long as you're careful," he reminded.

"Always," Rachel promised, and Quinn silently agreed.

After a Pop-ordered period on the bench with him, followed by juice, the girls regained their jungle gym fort, ready to scope out more trouble or, even better, potential to spread sunshine…

THE END

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**A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
****In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
****always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!**


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